


Wounds

by deadnightdrive (skyjacklegion)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-14
Updated: 2013-05-14
Packaged: 2017-12-11 19:49:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/802541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyjacklegion/pseuds/deadnightdrive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Did you know Australian's have like a hundred and fifty ways of saying Kangaroo."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wounds

"I'm not very good at being a friend," Stiles says, slouched against the porch. He's watching Isaac and Scott beat the shit out of each other, soda in hand, his hood drawn up to protect his ears from the cold. Derek's ignoring him, as always, and doesn't think about how the red hood is maybe a declaration from a boy who runs with wolves. "I'm good at being there for people when they need me but when they want me, I'm-."

Not. His shoulders hunch, like he's expecting a cuff around the ear but Derek finally looks at him, the red hood and the soda held in a deceptively loose grip. Leans back, elbow against the steps.

"I know." The feeling, the weight of it, the way it sits in your chest and you can't believe people actually want you around and Stiles doesn't so much stare as just breathe with him, watching Isaac sling Scott into a tree. 

\---

"Did you know Australian's have like a hundred and fifty ways of saying Kangaroo." Scott's chewing on something gross, leaning back against the bed, his hair hitting Stiles in the ankle as he rolls onto his back. He feels like shit. A cold, he'd told his dad. The venom from something really fucking gross, everyone else knows. Scott's slouched on his floor like he belongs there and for once there's no Isaac, no Allison and Stiles feels guilty as hell for the relief. 

"'m pretty sure that's bullshit, dude." He's not sniffling or coughing, just exhausted, but Scott reaches up to pat his ankle and grins around his chip (so that's what he's eating), mouth dusted with Doritos. 

"Prove it."

His computer's all the way over there so he kicks Scott in the head instead, gently. Like he's still human and Scott doesn’t move out of the way.  


\---

"Dad," he says, hands full of blood. "Dad."

His dad doesn't say a word. Stares, like he's convinced he's seeing something he's not at the body at his feet is still smoking, the gun against his leg hot to the touch. A hunter, a human and normally he wouldn't have but his dad's service weapon was on the table and Stiles is covered, covered in blood.

His dad doesn't speak. Doesn't move.

The wolf does. Scott uncurls himself from around Allison, her crossbow at her side and his dad just stares and stares and stares.

"I'm not a killer, dad." He knows that's a lie but he needs him to believe it and John just takes the gun from his son's hands, puts it down and reels him in, the body still smoking between them.  


\---

Deaton doesn't say spark, doesn't have to. Stiles believes enough for all of them, believes enough to pull the bullet right out of Derek's side and into his waiting hands. Too fast, it goes straight through and he doesn't care, his skin healing itself, Derek's skin healing itself. His hands still shake, his fingers cramping. He can't breathe. He believes until he sees it and then its fact so he can let it go, let it rest. 

Derek's hale and whole and he laughs at his own joke until he throws up, broad hands on his back and a low whine reverberating through his bones.

\---  
Lydia looks at him, really looks at him and Stiles stares back without flinching. She's aware, he's aware, they both know what they are and when she moves he does too, the hug crushing and hot and heavy.

"I'm a person now?" She asks, trying to make it light. He'd seen her as something else, an ideal, an _idea_ but he loves her just the same, more deeply than before with her hair askew and her collar crooked. 

"You're beautiful," he says, laughing against her temple as she reaches up and hits him on the back of the head, her own laughter a little too loud, just real enough.

\---

"Time heals all wounds." Derek says. Tests it out. It doesn't. He stares at the house, the rotting wood and the hole in his everything and takes a step back, down off the porch.  
He can feel Peter out there. He's always out there. The last of it, of his family, of a memory he can't bear to let go.

"Yeah, that's bullshit," Stiles says, drinking noisily from his cup and ignoring the way Derek zeroes in on the torn knees in his jeans, the hood of the jeep still warm underneath his legs. "You just have to live with them for longer."

Derek doesn't want to know how he knows this and thinks about the Sheriff, sitting on the porch with a shotgun like something out of Gran Torino. Thinks about the way Stiles has freedom now and seems to hate himself more and more each day.

Maybe they're not so different after all.

Derek steals his cup, the straw, finishing off the rest of the radioactive green crap in it before leaning his hip against the jeep, pressing their elbows together.  
"Shut up."

**Author's Note:**

> why can't I write ship things help


End file.
